Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 526: Touring Chicago & Wisonsin's Best Home Gyms

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

We travled to nine different home gyms in 2.5 days! Wisconsin and Illinois are officially all over our radar. We had a blast and we hope you enjoy coming along for the ride on the podcast. Don't forget to get signed up for the virtual Lift Hard Live Easy Classic! EliteFTS Use code MASS10 to save 10% on most orders! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates!

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think. If you don't follow Massanomics, you all do it.

Social media, website, everything. Massonomics! What's up, everyone? We are back for episode 526 of the Massonomics podcast. This is The Lifting Podcast. about nothing. My name is Tanner. My name is Tommy.

I'd rather be, the only thing I'd rather be doing right now than this is probably whipping a few shitties, but this is a close second. I'll take it. Yeah, you can never beat a good shitty whippen opportunity, but if you can't do that, at least you can tune in to another episode

of the Massonomics podcast. This week's episode, this is actually kind of exciting new news, the newest sponsor of the podcast. This just in EliteFTS.com has been brought on as a sponsor, and they have several sales going on currently. You can save 40% off their strong band. You can get up to 60% off a bunch of their clothing and merchandise.

And on most of that stuff, you can stack discount code to Mass 10. That's right. You stack it up on there. It's like your stacking plates. Yep. That's their, accommodating resistant discount codes over at EliteFTS.com

front of the podcast. Dave Tate, thanks for sponsoring, new sponsor. This episode is also brought you by Juggernaut AI. Juggernai is the smartest program for you. Since 2009, Juggernaut has been your trusted training resource helping tens of thousands of athletes reach their goals.

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That's, you're checking in with the app before training, after each set, and after training. And it's going to make adjustments so that you can get the most out of every training session. I've been using Juggernaut AI for several years now. I've used it to hit some all-time PRs. And I also think I'm building towards some other all-time PRs. So it's kept training fun. I highly recommend it. If you use code massonomics, you can save 10% off the,

lifetime of your membership. You have to do that at juggernaut. AI. The website and put code massonomics in. You'll save 10%. Thank you, Juggernaut AI. Sounds like you're kind of in a PR or ER state of mind over there.

That's exactly how I live my life. I live my life one ER visit at a time. What are you wearing a silly goose barbell club? You know, I was just looking at that. We have the same shirt on, but it is actually a different one. You've got different blanks. Different blank. But actually different Blake.

It does get more impressive as time goes on that we're still doing that. Where's Boston, Jose, when you need them to run the figures on this? What are the odds that we wear the same shirt but on a different blank? Run those numbers, damn it. And what are the odds that one shirt is a true solid color and the other one is a heathered color? What are the odds, Jose, get back to us in the YouTube comments like I know you will? Okay, this week's episode, we have a whole bunch of stuff. We're going to recap our big trip touring.

God only knows how many gyms throughout the eastern Midwest. Oh, my goodness, we toured some gyms. But first, I want to remind everyone at the time of this, that this episode's out, we are in the registration window for the first ever lift, hard, live easy, online meet competition. You can get signed up now, sign up open on May. and it is open until May 23rd. When you sign up, it's just $50 and that gets you a shirt,

the Lift Hardly Veezy shirt. It gets you the Lift Hardly Veezy magnet to go along with it for the 26 Lift Hardly VZ. And then you get entered into the competition. So for every 20 entrance that we get, we're going to give away $100 Massonomics gift card. If we get over 100 entrance, there's going to be a grand prize of $200. $150 plus a Massonomics Hall of Fame contest win at stake. Winners are not results driven, but that doesn't mean we won't like to see some sweet results in the competition.

Submissions will be July 6th to July 12th. So you've got to get it signed up by May 23rd, but your actual lifting submission will be July 6th to July 12th. That submission page will also be on the Massonomics website. You have that window to do it. It'll just require you to submit the numbers for each of your three lifts. And then also a link of some sort, whether that's an Instagram link, a Facebook link, a TikTok link, a Google Drive link. A vine link. Vine link.

Anywhere you can put a video. Seven seconds. Yeah, not going to be much set up. Time to allow it to show the setup of your video for the vine links. It could be a YouTube link to the video. Any of that. It could be a smoke signal. That's trickier.

A chain link. Well, that's an interesting idea as well. Not sure if those are as applicable. But get some sort of link in there to get your results in. The lifts are a squat, bench, and deadlift. Someone asked this week if Strongman, how does a strongman get involved? And luckily, we thought of everything.

There are three Strongman events. If you are a strongman and want to compete in this, it's great. It's perfect. Do not hesitate to get signed up. The three strong men events are a one rep max squat on a regular barbell with no box sitting on and no box for the plates to touch either. And then the next event would be a press, the one rep max press lying back on a bench with a regular barbell. And then the third event, if you can guess by now,

would actually be a strong man deadlift. The strong man deadlift variation has a twist, though. We can also accept sumo variation of the deadlift in this particular strongman event. Really flipping the strongman game on its head. Yeah. So there you go. Strongman can get involved also.

Is that enough of a quick recap on that? I just want to put that out while we're in the registration window. I think so all the roster and results will all be posted. on the massonomics website yeah so the product will exist on the masanomics store you'll have to go in there so you can check out buy your shirt get your size in all of that and your and register but then we'll also have an actual page on the website that has the roster of everyone that has entered the meet and some additional details on there so there will be more information on the site your shirt and stuff will get mailed out sometime in july not exactly sure what time in july but sometime in july

once we get the shirts i suppose that's when they would get mailed out i also want to to just as an announcement put out there. Anyone that's a Massonomics, a Hall of Fame level member, anyone that has reason to believe they will be hitting the final frontier, the jacket level by this summer, particularly at or prior to the Lift Hardly of Easy Classic

or at or prior to Home GymCon, I want to know to make sure we get your jacket ready. The jackets are personalized. then we need a little lead time on that. I've actually started to compile that list. I feel like I have a good idea what the jacket ceremony is going to consist of. But calling all listeners,

please tell your other Hall of Fame member friends that if they think that they're going to be getting a jacket, they need to make sure to let us know so we can have those jacket ready. Jackets are ready. I say there's no more special moment for a supporting member than to get your jacket at the Lyft Hardly Easy Classic

and Tanner's backyard in front of 200 other people. the jacket for anyone that hasn't been to one before the Hall of Fame jacket ceremony is actually a big deal at this point like everything at

Masonomics is a little silly and goofy but everyone when you get your jacket it is a big deal everyone recognizes it recognizes it and it is an accomplishment

and everyone's like there's a lot of respect going around when you get your jacket for that matter anyone that's an example that's an existing Hall of Fame member. Make sure to bring your jacket to those events if you're coming

because all existing jacket members are a part of the ceremony, of course. And because it's April when we're recording this, no one will remember. So we'll remind you guys getting in July. Yes. We'll run. The main point here is I want to know if anyone thinks that they're going to be hitting those numbers because I want to make sure to have your jacket ready.

All right. Should we just on with the show? Yeah, I'm really thirsty, though. I've got to crack into this here. Someone commented on YouTube, YouTube slash Instagram comment of the week, the classic, ah, 30 minutes in. And they said actually what we just done right now is this is only 10 minutes, but they go 30 minutes of announcements,

I get that there's a community here, but eventually you have to talk about something. And I'm like, you don't get it because that's the show. You actually, you said you get it. But your comment is telling me, you don't get it because that's the show. Some weeks, 30 minutes of announcements, that's going fast. There's just a lot of announcements. And I hit them with, well, that's it.

You just earned yourself 60 minutes next time. We can go longer. 70 minutes. 80 minutes. I gave him the breakfast club, 100 minutes. You know, we just rode on a plane this weekend. I feel like they had like 45 minutes of announcements. And that was just for nothing but sitting on your ass, you know?

You know, My favorite announcement on the plane was, we're so used to these bad announcements on the plane that's like telling you we have no gate to go to or whatever it is. You know, you know the announcement. Yep. And the pilot gets on there and he's almost like. This is after we're like 30 minutes in the air.

And going to Chicago is just a touch over an hour. Yeah, and he's like, this is an over-dramatization. But he's like, I got some bad news for everyone. I just need to apologize. I just want to apologize in advance. This is serious. This is bad. We're like,

oh my God, what's about to happen here? And what was it? We can't find smooth air. We just can't find smooth air. So you're just going to have to tough it out for the next about 25 minutes here. It wasn't even rough. No,

it wasn't at all. And we go, oh, that's the bad news. Thank you. Yeah. And we were joking. It's like,

oh, it's like the family guy announcement. Like, oh, I don't know how to break this. you, but you're not going to live for another 50 years. Or, you know, like, just, like, really dumb ways of phrasing stuff. That doesn't make any sense.

Yes. What were you drinking over there? Oh, I got the Blackberry Lemonade Waterloo. Oh, yeah. That's a little too flavorful for me. I got a real palate cleanser over here. Pure. I'm pure. I'm still cleansing the palate from the, uh, from this trip we went on.

Oh. all the garbage that went in my gut. I know. I know the feeling, man, the scale. I was really holding on to a lot of liquid when I got home on, I was heavy, dude, I was really, I mean, I drank a lot. Had to have been the Saturday night, but I was all, I also,

one day later, it was all back gone away. Like, I was heavy on Monday morning. And then by Tuesday morning, I was completely leveled back out. That's exactly how I was to. I was holding like four extra. extra pounds. Yeah.

Yeah. It has to be from the salt, all the salt, sodium. It's exactly right. It was four extra pounds is where I was at too. Yeah. I got on the scale. I was like, my God. Holy crap.

And then the next day it was just completely back. Just withering away over here. Oh. So how about that trip? Okay. Did you have a nice trip? I'll see you next fall. It was a good trip, though.

Man, do these things just, these things beat you up. don't they? We go so hard on these things. It's one of the, it's, it's, it's, it's very mentally and physically challenging. Like, it's hard to describe why that's the case, but it is just, it's just all encompassing, exhausting. And everything went about as good as it could have, too. You know, like it wasn't like we were just battling the schedule the whole time. It went really well. Yeah, scheduling stayed good.

Like we said, but it's just, man, these things, they, they are, they take a toll on you. It's hard. It's tough. Very awesome. Oh, but they're, yes, they're so fun. That's part of it is you're just having such a good time that you just,

it doesn't end. You know, it's just, man, like you're just riding this high for two straight days. We are riding a high for like three days where it's just one thing after another of just like cool stuff. And it just,

um, I mean, we should just get through, go through the order of events. So the travel part, there's actually not a ton to comment on there other than the fact that, you know, It's slightly over an hour flight.

It was one single flight to Chicago, which is great. It went off smoothly. We went to the car rental place. I would like to talk about the car rental. We recognize all of the ladies at the car rental desk because we stared at them for two straight hours. Last time we were in Chicago two months ago. I'm very annoyed. I was very annoyed that we walked up there and I recognized all of them.

I do not want to know the ladies at the Chicago car rental. And it was the same five. Like every one of them is like, oh, yep, well, there's the one that helped us the last time. There's the one that was talking like they were all there. We knew them all. They don't know us, but we know them. And the car rental business, I mean, we've talked about this, our stories the last several times, but the car rental business is the worst. I'm sorry, if you work for a car rental agency, you suck.

It's all deception and poor communication. Here's the, here's the issue. Here's the crux of the issue here. So you go up to the car rental counter. you go up there and you say, hey, we're ready for our rental. And they go, okay, yeah, here's your Kia Nero electric vehicle. And like I was saying, we don't have electric vehicles. We've never driven electric vehicles.

When we're driving many hundreds of miles is not the time we're going to be like, hey, let's figure out how the electric charging infrastructure is in the Midwest. That's not how it's going to go. And I can tell you for a fact, I did not book an electric car because I know what an electric car is. I'm not going to book it for our trip. And she goes, look at your, look at your booking there. You'll see the EV. Well, she goes, well, yeah, you booked a Kia Nero.

That's an electric vehicle. And I'm like, no, it's not. It can be an electric vehicle. It can also be a hybrid vehicle, which most of the vehicles we rent are hybrid. Yeah, pretty much all the vehicles in a rental. Yeah. So she's like, well, look at your rental. It says electric car rate on it.

And nowhere on the, nowhere on the, nowhere on the reservation. Doesn't say electric car. Nowhere. It just says Keanu or a similar compact sedan or mid-sized crossover, whatever it is. But because you know they can make your life hell because they did that to us two months ago, you don't want to argue with them at all. Exactly. Well, that's fine.

She was also being like in a way that you could tell she was positive. She is correct. Yes. Yes. Yeah, there was no, there was no give or take there. So she goes, well, that's fine. We'll just upgrade you to a gas car. It's only an extra $10 a day.

which is, doesn't matter, but also the principle of it is annoying. So we do that. And then why did I think there was one more dumb thing? Well, of course, the gas car, they upgrade us to is a Toyota Corolla, which is just a very, very tiny vehicle to have. Actually, probably the smallest vehicle we've ever got on one of these trips. Yeah. It's not large.

Yeah. Oh, and then the other one was, what did she ask? us for something money and you go, I think maybe it was the toll pass or something. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, oh, yeah. She's like, yeah, you're here. Because she goes, are you here for business or fun? And we said, well, it's business. And she goes, well, the business is paying for it. So it doesn't matter. It's like, well, I'm like, we are the business. We are the business. That is our money. And we're not in the business of giving our money away for fun. Yeah, there's, there's nothing that I'd rather do than wake up in the morning be like, God, how could I give the car rental agency more of this money?

Also, a fun premise to presume that every employee is like, ah, screw it. Yeah. Someone's covering it. Yes. You know, like, yeah, those assholes that pay my paychecks pay for this, so I don't care about nothing. Right.

Just charge it up. I'd want rather, I want all the rental car companies to get rich off of us. Yes. Sign me up for every insurance package you got. I want it all. Give me toll passes for states I'm not even going to. Give it to me. Yeah.

But anyways, we got our vehicle. Yeah. And immediately hit the road to Madison, Wisconsin. And what was it? Like a two and a half hour drive? Something like that. But before we could go, because this is all of our trips are, we woke up at, I don't know, it was like $4.50.

It was early in the morning. Yep. And we hadn't ate breakfast because it's so early. So like always, we take off down the interstate and then just wait for the first thing to pop up and a cracker barrel pops up oh yeah right is that cracker is that what we're called cracker we'd never been to one yep and we went and it was I mean it's an experience in yeah the way that that can be an experience it was fine I would we both walked away from being like yeah we'd pick waffle house any day over yeah cracker barrel I would take waffle house over that it was it wasn't bad

no there's nothing wrong with it but I think waffle house maybe there's just some charm to Waffle House that there is that this fake general store can't trick me into believing I won't be fooled cracker barrel feels like you're going into Waldragg kind of or something later actually yeah it's that same thing of like yeah I get you're kind of going for a thing it's very fake and very polished we're like Waffle House it feels like you're getting the real deal you know right right that's a good comparison but then we did hit our one and probably only actual surprise of the entire trip was when we got out of Cracker Barrel.

We were texting or messaging everyone saying, hey, we are en route. We will be there shortly. And we got our first message from John Hack that he was not able to make it work. We kind of had a heads up on this one. So it was just a few days before he said, yeah, I got something going on with work that it's possible.

I don't actually make it back to Wisconsin in time. And that is the case. That is what happened. And we said out of 10, there's going to be one that doesn't work out. And so we we scrambled on that for quite a bit. Actually, we went through scenarios with him. Like, what if we go to Milwaukee? We come back to Wisconsin real late at night.

Could we make it happen? Like we were talking about leaving Madison, going to Milwaukee, coming back to Madison, just to go back to Milwaukee again. Yeah. But that is the nature of what we try and do. We kind of have the attitude. No, we're here. We're doing stuff.

We're not going to just like, chill. And then once we realized that couldn't work, we tried to actually squeeze one more in. We talked to, it was actually the guy that got second, I believe, to Jake the Snake at his recent strongman competition. Brent. Brett. Yes, I think we were going to try to do his and he couldn't like get off work. We were like 30 minutes apart of what we could possibly make that happen and keep our schedule. So we didn't get to, we didn't get to do that one either. So we did, yeah, Big Katie's here, actually.

She knows it's Brett. So we almost picked that one up to replace it. They were very close to hammering out the details on that too. And we couldn't quite do it without breaking the schedule or at least making the schedule way too crazy. So we did go one less on Friday. But it was just one less. And we started the day.

We pull into Madison, pull up to Andrew Haneus's house. And this was funny because we pull up, and immediately, you know, I'm kind of into cars. There's a very nice car sitting in the driveway, a very nice car sitting in the garage. And it's like, oh, yeah, this is the house. And you're like, God, I could have swore this was a garage gym,

but there's no gym here. I'm like, uh, maybe he moved it to the basement. I was getting a little worried. Well, and then it's like, maybe was there some miscommunication? Does he not have a garage? Does he not have a gym at all? That's, I, I kind of ended up saying, like, I'm waiting for the,

day we schedule one of these because sometimes with some people there's not a ton of communication like there's some assumptions going on on both sides of the conversation and we don't explicitly talk about all facets of the gym. So I'm like, I'm like, is this the time that we flew across the country to go do a gym tour with someone and they're confused of what's going on and they don't actually have a home gym? Their gym is just to have like some dumbbells and some bands. You know, they're like, no, I just go to the gym. I just have some recover. stuff here at home, you know? Right, right. We were like, oh my God, is this the time that actually happened? But it was not. We're still batting a thousand in that. We haven't gone

to do tour a home gym that doesn't exist. I haven't been disappointed yet. Yeah, so actually what had happened is we kind of got so distracted staring at his cars that when we went to his front door, we didn't realize that he has the setup where it's kind of like the L situation for the garages where there's like two garages on the left. And then there's the front door. And then to the right of the front door is one third or is a third stall that's just kind of sitting there separate. And yeah, the gym was in there. We just, we didn't see it. So we were, we were caught off guard.

But the gym, the gym was great once we got inside. It was, it was a nice gym. It was cool. It was the first tour of the trip, gym tour, garage gym, and very cool. I mean, you'll see, you'll see the gym tour. Actually, that is the first one tomorrow. Yep, I got the video. So pretty much done.

today. So this is the one out of all the visits we're going to talk about that as the you're listening to this episode, dude, you can actually go check out that gym tour. It exists. So you know, I guess we don't have to tell you all the details because you can go watch the video of the actual gym tour and see it for yourself. And I would say what one thing we added that you'll start to see though. I think we did it with everyone, didn't we? Is there's a secondary short interview that will be on the gym radar YouTube channel. And I think we got one with all nine people. Yeah.

And it's more, it's like a three minute video. Depending on the person, it's anywhere. We're also working the format here. So there were some changes. There's small changes this time went on. But anywhere between a three and seven minute video where we ask roughly 15-ish questions,

mostly specific to your home gym and equipment. That was just a way to get. you know, some really more targeted questions that we wouldn't necessarily put on the Masanomics channel. And it's another way to see, you know, content from these gym owners and them and they're setting. They're just, they're just, it's a stationary interview. You know, we're not walking around the gym. It's just some, uh, punchy questions about what they got going on. And I, I've watched, uh, some of these back, I've just skimmed through them. I think they're really cool. It's totally different for us. You know, it has a little bit different style of presentation and direction and

and all that. But I think if there's any person going forward that we have a gym tour with and you'd like to hear more from them, it's a really cool piece of content. Yes. So we finish up Andrews. Also, a sack segment. Andrew gave us 3D printed coosies. I don't know if you've got yours over there or not.

Mine's sitting in my bag. I'm actually literally using mine right now. So that was cool. He also sent us with some sparkling water, some Wisconsin. Cherry sparkling waters. I've had better. It was a different kind of cherry. Yeah, I'm not complaining about the gift of sparkling water.

We drank a lot of them all we were in the car. Yeah. And he kind of showed us some of his other, you know, hobby, cool stuff he's got going on between, you got to rev up his Porsche and. Yeah, I got to sit in that thing. We got to make some dumb stupid reels. Actually, we made a lot more reels on this trip than we ever had before, too.

Yeah. But, yeah, pretty much everywhere we were. went, we tried to think of something unique to do with that person where we could, where we had time, we could make it work. If we could do a reel, we did. And yeah, so I got to sit in one of his cars and make some dumb comments to you. And get in loser. We're going to look at home gyms.

I wonder if we should do that on every trip from now on. Like, it always starts with that. It's always, yeah. That's our intro forever. I also, you know, I make, uh, once we, every trip we do or every event we do, I try to make a montage video that never performs that well on Instagram, but I love those.

Oh, I do too. I watch that, like once it's done, I watch it. I'm not joking, I watch it like 10 times because it's so fun. My thing I was going to tell you is that when those videos come out, you know, I was there for it.

I know there's no surprises. But the whole time I catch myself doing this, I'm watching it going, I'm just like, I have a big open mouth smile. And I'm like, why am I smiling so much? Like, I get it. It's me. but, you know, I was there, but I just get too excited watching it back.

Like, I'm usually not even in any of those, you know, because I'm usually recording them, so I'm usually in very few. But there's always that feeling every time where I'm like, oh, everyone's having so much fun. I feel like I'm just watching a movie that has a bunch of cameo appearances with all my friends in it is what it feels like, you know? Yeah. So I make that video every time.

And I always like picking the song is always a thing. And one that I've used in the past is that Hall of Note song. It just works so good. The second time I used it and I like, I experimented like seven different songs this time and I'm like, no song has the right vibe of this. What is the HoloNote song? You make my dreams come true. Yeah. And I'm like, I decide.

After doing that, I decided I'm not wasting any time thinking about that again. It's going to be the song on every one. Because I'm like, none of the other ones are quite right where that Holo notes one every time I'm like, oh, this is the perfect. vibe of what's going on. It just works. When it's kind of not quite the right song, it really doesn't have the vibe that I want. So that's, I think,

will be the new joke is that it's always the Hall of Note songs for those montage videos. I like that. Well, we got that, one less thing to worry about then, right? That's what I thought to. Now I also don't have to spend any time thinking about it. It's always going to be that one. We got done at Andrews,

and because we're supposed to go to John's next, because that fell through, what that meant is, we now had just a few moments to actually go and eat some food. Well, first we went to Marks. Oh, God, yeah, you're right. That was Marks. Oh, yes. Yeah.

All right. I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah. So we go to Marks, which is, what, 15 minutes away, something like that? Yeah. Just right down the road. And somebody going to Marks because actually, well, did you see, was he at home JimCon last year? Yes.

He was there. I hadn't seen him since, uh, since the, Eagle Olympics. So it was just nice to see him again. But going in his gym, you know, it is exactly actually, actually the layout. The layout was slightly different in my head, you know, than what. Yeah. But you do feel like, no, you're kind of on the mark set here. You know, you're the deadliest lift set. Like, you do get that vibe absolutely down there. And man, does that guy have plates? Holy crap. He probably to have the most variety and volume of plates in a home gym like that that we've ever seen. There's very few gyms we've ever been to that have more plates than him. I don't know,

Jujis, maybe, because all of his machines were plate loaded, maybe. I would say he has a lot more gym equipment in there than I thought just based on, you know, what I've seen online of his videos and stuff. There's a lot going on in there. Because a lot of the angles he shoots, like the platform, you know, it's a relatively big open space. Right. But then on the sides of it, he has a lot of other stuff in there. That's going to be a cool tour, actually. Like that, he, He has a lot of interesting stuff in that gym. And I mean, some people might know he has some weird things, you know, like, I'd say weird, but he just, like, unique. He has swords and stuff like that.

Right, right. But beyond that, he just has really interesting gym equipment, too, in my opinion. So, like, I, that's, that is a great tour, I think, at least was what it felt like to me. Like, that's a very interesting one. Yep, I think it'll be good. And then we made some shorts. some reels. Looking through the ceiling thing, I think is great.

Like the way that turned out, I'm like, that was a good video. Uh-huh. And then him doing the goofy shit in the driveway. Yeah. And then Mark, yeah, stand on the Ellastone. We're driving by. That was also just so funny of, hey, what's that over there? Mark standing there.

No, no, not it. Let's keep going. Keep looking. That can't be it. That's somebody else. Yeah, that was really funny. And then sometimes I, I take a step back and I think back of what like high school me would think of,

oh, this is like a couple of guys damn near 40 that are making these dumb like stupid skits to then put on the internet for whatever reason. When we do that stuff, I mean, it's funny that you say that because I often think it reminds me a lot of, uh, you, Darren, I mean, this is, I'm speaking to you when I say this. Most people don't know who I'm talking about, but my friend Darren, we were in school together, kindergarten through 12th grade. And every time we had an opportunity for like a class project to do a video and like a skit video, we did.

I mean, we probably did 20 of them like over, you know, a seven year span. And it was hard back then too. Oh, I mean, we were like, we had AV equipment to like do these. But I like doing that stuff back then. So it stands to reason that I think it's fun now too, you know. We were the exact same way. Like any time we could make a video for something, we'd make a video for something. Even if it wasn't that necessary for the video video.

I mean, it was almost never necessary actually. But it was the idea of it was just too exciting. I'd love to get. We did one for like the T.I. Calculator one time. I can't even remember what that was for. But that's, and you get the feeling that like when we're sitting there brainstorming, that Mark probably also did that same sort of thing.

Oh, probably, yeah. It kind of attracts a certain type of person, yeah, to want to do these things. Yeah. You know, you don't just usually get to it by complete accident. You know, maybe he had some inkling to want to do it earlier. And it's like having a third brain there, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, like he's a, because he does a lot of reals too. So he, yeah. He's like, oh, well, we should do this.

It'd be better if he did this. And it's, oh, yeah, good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So then after that is when John's should have been the tour that never was. and we couldn't quite work out breaths, which would have been cool if we could have done that one still since we actually did have some spare time

and since I was starving. It's one of the most hungry I can recall being in a long time because by this time it was about 4.30 p.m. The only food we had eaten that day was Cracker Barrel at like 9 a.m. It wasn't that much food. No, that was part of my takeaway from Cracker Barrel is we ordered kind of the hardiest thing on the menu, presumably. Yeah, and it wasn't that much.

that much. And I was already hungry going into that. So I left there like I was okay. Yeah, but not like carry me. Yeah, but not carry me to 6 p.m. that same day,

kind of full. So I believe your words to me were, God, it's like if we could just find like a Texas roadhouse where we just stuff ourselves, it's like, well, let's just find one.

And so that's what we did. We went to Texas Roadhouse. and did it up and man, Tanner ate like 20 buns. And actually the funny part. So we both got the same thing. We always get the, what, the 12 ounce rib eye with the half racker ribs. And then, you know, whatever you're at for sides. And I had like six buns.

I think I literally had six buns. Well, and then also Tanner put down like four glass, like 32 glass of water. Probably had like three quarters of a gallon of water. I mean, I had like over half a gallon of water for sure. maybe the way like you just kept bringing you cups of water because you kept drinking it and then at the end when we're all done eating you're like okay i got to go to the bathroom and you get up and go and the waiter comes over and goes did that guy go to the bathroom i'm like yeah he goes oh i was wondering when he was going to go just in shock at the amount of water you drink

i did drink a lot i actually did the math i'm pretty sure i i did have 3 000 calories for that meal too Yeah, it was 3,000 calories and three quarters of a gallon of water is actually what I consumed there. And I'm not lying when I left. I was full, but I was like not sick. You know, I wasn't like, oh, you know, how am I going to drive? For me, it was like the volume of water. I was just so full feeling, you know, and I didn't even drink that much water. You drink like twice as much as me, three times as much as me.

But, yeah, I was, I was satisfied by the time we left there. I was good. I was too. I was very content. Actually, that carried me through the rest of the day. That was the kind of meal that could allow you to get away with two meals in a day. Yes, especially, calorically speaking. But we got done there and we went out on the road to Milwaukee.

And it's big Katie's house. Yep, we pulled in. What was it? A little after 8 o'clock, I think. Yeah, it wasn't dark yet. It was getting close to sunset, though. Yep. And we got the tour, Acadie's Gym.

Acadian Big Al. Yep. And I love, I love Al's license plate. Yeah. Yes. That's good. So she's got the garage gym, which you probably all, you know, no parking. What is it?

No parking, Strongman, Jim or? Is it no parking zone? Yeah. And PZ. But then they also have like the quintessential mid-examine. Midwestern basement with some gym equipment in there, too. So we got to go down there. And a bar.

And a bar in the gym, obviously. Yeah. And you guys had a funny little Midwest line about a meat raffle at the end of the tour, which was hilarious. That wasn't rehearsed. That was Katie's line there. What was that? What was the line? Katie's listing live.

She knows. It's about being at the Legion. What was, what was, something was one? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We got our Mr. Buddy electric heater at a meat raffle at the Legion. Propane. Yeah.

I won our Mr. Propane Reader at the Legion. Down at the Legion. And I think the comment we made is there's parts of the country that none of those words would make any sense, but we all know exactly what you mean here. On Big Buck Knight, the raffle at the Legion. Our Mr. Buddy propane heater.

Oh, yeah, we were dying over that. That was good. Yeah. And, yeah, her tour was really good. At the time we were, I mean, it was dark by the time we're getting the last of the photos taken and the last of the footage. I think it was, I don't know, 930 or so, something like that. So, there was a little hotel. Yeah, so we hit the road and we did, oh, we actually drove for a while.

We drove to, I think, pretty much like race. We drove like almost an hour then, didn't we? Yeah, basically. Yeah. Because we were like, oh, we got a little time. We'll just drive pretty much to right where our next tour is for the next day. Right. We got to the hotel.

And like always, the hotel front desk ladies never disappoint. No, though the last time she was to give credit where it was due, the woman we had on our last trip was so good that I even, I think we talked about on the podcast. I had to tell her. On her checking skills. You were so good at this. One of the few people that's ever checked us in that's under the age of 45.

Yeah. Which maybe helps too. She was, and she just looked normal. Like, she had a very normal vibe to her. Way too nosy. Way too no. Asking way too many questions about our personal business. Way too many questions.

They often do this. She took it even farther than normal. Well, the first problem starts when I walk in and I say, because we do this whole time, can we get a room? And she goes, what kind of room? I go, two queen beds. She goes, oh, let me see what I got. Like, it's just in the parking lot. It's not full.

There's like six cars out there. Oh, what's going on here? And she goes, um, oh, okay, yep, yep,

we got a room. And she clacks away for way too long. And then, uh, turns out those are full. We'll have to put you up to a suite. It's going to be an extra like $20. And it was already very,

it was already like a $200 room somehow. And now it's turned into like a $220 room so we can have a couch for the suite in the room with the other two queen beds. And what? Whatever. So we do it. But then she's asking way too many questions about what we do. As some of them tend to do, like the professional wrestling thing seems to come up a fair amount. Do they wonder for like we're pro wrestlers?

And then she was wondering if we're a personal trainers and then just asking about just, yeah, way too many questions. And we don't want to chat at that point. Honestly, we're extremely tired lady. You don't know what we've been through over here. And this conversation isn't leading to anything here. Like this is a transaction. Like we're polite, but also actually sometimes I don't

even know how to answer. Like sometimes I get done and I'm like, I should have just told all lies. Whatever the answer is to literally get it. Like that's going to be my new policy. Just, oh, got a lot of paperwork we got to do. I'm just going to be like, we're brothers

are the rest of our family just all died in a plane crash. We're here for that. We don't want to talk about. Certain people, no matter what you say, they're I'm going to cry. Like, I want to be like, what can I say to make you not ask a follow up? We're just here to do paperwork and for meetings. You're like, oh, I used to have a job where, like, you know it.

Like, it would just turn into that somehow. Yes. Should we do a little break before we get into our busy Saturday? Yeah, probably. That's a recap of that first day then. Yeah. Yeah, let's, I don't know. What do you think about supporting our supporting members, actually?

I think that's a great idea. It's a relatively new segment here. It's just the 26th time here in season two of the podcast that we've done supporting our supporting members. It's a cool segment. It's where we like to give back to those that give to us. We have this cool community of supporting members that kind of, particularly over the last couple of years,

have almost become like the number one way that we keep Masonomics going. Like this supporting membership program actually can't emphasize enough how important that is to Massonomics into what Massonomics has become without these supporting members, we really wouldn't. I don't even know if we'd still be doing massonomics. Like if this didn't become a thing, it's very possible. It wouldn't have worked out. It's, it all to the ground. It is literally very possible. Like that's how important this is.

It's like the biggest thing that goes on around here. So that to be said, if you're a. fan of the show, the podcast, the YouTube, anything else. Even if you just, you're not even a fan, but you're just like, I'm sucked into this, and I kind of want it to be around next week. Like, it's a background noise to me. I don't even like it, but I just want it. It's the Shawshank Redemption.

You know, after first you hate these walls, then you get used to them. After a while, you actually learned to depend. on them. Even if that's what the massonomics world is to you, we'd love to have you be a supporting member. And also, because while we're talking supporting members, the next giveaway,

the next supporting member thank you gift has been ordered, but we have ordered extra. So the line in the sand has not been drawn yet. There is still plenty of time for you to get in on the good times here. We'd love to have you. we have a special little gift with your name on it as long as you sign up in the next few weeks here because those will start going into full production

as we receive them and get everything ready here. So the line in the sand is going to be in May. And by this comes out in May, the line in the sand will be in May. We can say that definitively at this point. We don't know the exact drop dead date yet that you will drop dead if you haven't become a supportive member by then.

Um, you will die. Like this, that's not like a line in the sand reference. You'll just be dead if you don't become a supporting member by that date. It's a very aggressive way of putting it. Yeah. I can't argue with you. At least you'll drop to your ass, one of the two. I don't know.

You'll drop to a seated position really quick. You will assume the seated position immediately. Uh, if I can't sit on my ass, I'm going to pass. Okay, so yeah, the gift is very fun. It's very cool. It would be shameful to be a regular associate of this show and not get it. It would be sorrowful. It would just, I can't think of it. It would just be debilitating to not be in on this one, I think. I just can't imagine being that person and you don't want to either. But this week's members that we want to support, the Northeast Ohio Crew Strongman Meetup featuring the likes of boy band, Kevin, Tom, Kyle, and Andrew.

Oh, that sounds like trouble right there. The sexiest Northeast Ohio Strongman boy band you've ever seen. That group really sounds like trouble. Wouldn't want to meet those four in a dark alley. Actually, I would. I'd feel really safe. Syk, you would love to meet those guys in a dark alley. they'd help you find your way and make you feel safe.

Probably make sure you have a snack and show you to the closest restroom if you needed. Big Sydney is now, almost now officially Big Doctor, Sidney or Dr. Big Sydney. God, that's a lot of titles. Sydney PhD. We'll work on the order. Speaking of doctors, Big Dr. Jake just passed. his board certification. Yeah, these people are just studying all day every day.

Actually, Dr. Jake's here. He said they voted on Sydney. I assume the crew doctors, and he said it's big doctor, Sydney. Okay. I like, you know, there's regional crew. Occupational crew. There's also like occupational crew.

And that's not it. There's also hobby crew, you know, because there's like the Strava Cyclist group. Yep. So you can be affiliated with more than one subsection. of crew, you might be Pacific Northwest crew, also in the biking crew, and also a doctor in the doctor crew. Or like I was talking to big Megan at the gym, someone on last week supporting our supporting

members put in there that they just like got their officially passed their, I don't know what it's called, but a blind person when they get their service dog or, you know, that they just like, went through that process. And I can't remember the crew member's name. Maybe somebody remembers. But Big Bangin was like, oh, blind crew group. She's like, there's another blind person here. Like, we need a group for this.

And I'm like, yes, the crew is not just big bumps. Yeah, that's right. Big bumps. So now there's, you know, it's just another way that you find people that relate to you in the supporting member crew. Oh, man. something for everyone. Yep.

Okay. Big Josh competed in Kansas City's strongest strongman competition. A hell of a job there. He competed and also hit a deadlift PR in the process. Very nice. I think Big Josh is also the one that's got something special coming for the lift, hardly of easy in the way of large drink spotters. Oh.

Maybe like the double or triple XL drink spotters that he had in the works. Big old Greg competed in his first Highland Games of the season, and he got second place. Big Sterling was this week's guest on our brady little sister podcast, the unpaid and underrated podcast. Just another perk of becoming a supporting member. If you're in on the community, you can become a guest on their show. They've interviewed over 100 people as well as that. Big Alex was this week's guest on the half. baked training thoughts podcast.

Another podcast in the Massonomics podcast consortium. The creator content universe. Yes. Yes. Yes. Another podcast in the podcast, Massonomics podcast network. Big Alex.

Go give it a listen. Thank you, supporting members. Now for something completely different. How about a certified training facility of the week? Yeah, I think I got one here. Oh, you got one? It has a good vibe, unless you have something that you want. I just popped one up here that I'm like, is this a,

oh, it is a certified training facility. This one's pretty good, too. Okay. Well, you want to take it then? I just liked the looks of it on the outside. Who is this even? Or where is this? Okay.

I've got one unless you got one. Take it. All right. I'll just, I'll pick the spot this week. The Shed Quarters. Love the gym name, first of all. The Shedquarters. Oh, I don't think you've ever seen this one.

Yeah. Is this new? It is now the certified training facility of the week. If you refresh your page for those long of you playing along at home, the Shedquarters is now certified training facility of the week, giving them 50 extra bonus points. on the gym radar leaderboard. Okay.

Should we hop right into the shed quarters? Yeah, let's take a look at shed quarters. So the shed quarters is located in Pennsylvania. The owner is barbells and paces. And the gym was established in 2026. And it does happen to be a shed. That is where the name was derived from is the shape of the building it's in. Now I get it.

It's roughly 120 square feet. He said it was 10 by 12. All-American Barn PV Shed, if you want to get the exact same one. That sounds very, very quality right there. Their top equipment brands, Rep, Titan, and the Strength Co. Now, if we're taking a look at this shed, it's definitely placed in a yard somewhere. There's a lot of grass around it.

It's kind of a bluish color with some nice white trim or a classic book, I'd say. It's new. You can see the flags are there from where they just dropped her down. Yeah, they just did the level, you know, the gravel or whatever they decided to level out the ground with underneath the shed. So it's brand new. Well, when does it say it's established? 2026.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yes, it is brand new. Yeah. So looking at the outside, we got you, I mean, it's your, it's your classic shed. It's about like what you would expect if you said someone has a wood shed in their backyard. And when we open it up, inside. Okay, what is, how do they?

do what is these walls is it just insulation is that what that is that has that kind of reflective look i think that's the inside of the particle board okay okay okay thank all right so in the shed i i do believe it has insulated in you know some properties of it you know i'm not sure exactly what that does but maybe it has some insulating properties there appears to be electricity because i do see a light switch and some wires running through okay the walls there which that's a nice little bonus if it's got that. But in the shed, it's, I think, you know, a newer setup. So it's the beginning of something special.

They have a rep squat rack. They got a plate tree with strength co plates. What barbell they got, Tanner? Double black diamond from rep fitness. Ooh, okay. And that rep rack is the 1,100 power. So is that like a 2x2 rack? Is that what that is?

Two by 2 with, I think, 1 inch holes. Yeah, and it's got like the pin, pin pipe safety's on. on it. Yeah, or is it two by three? I can't quite tell. I think it's two by two. Yeah, I think it's two by two with the pinpipe safeties, yep.

And they got the gym radar certified training facility. So you know it's fresh when you got the gym radar. I was going to say that hasn't been out there for very long. No. I think, uh, I think I see some keppie collars on the rack here too. Yeah.

I bet that's what that is. Yep. And then diamond plate horse stall mass. which is a nice little touch. I can't tell that silver side. Is that just the floor of the gym itself? That's not like a mat of any kind, is it? I don't know.

Silver diamond plate pattern. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that is just the normal gym flooring there even. Yeah, I'm not quite sure. Yeah, it must be, okay. Well, no, it looks like it's a little lower, though. Maybe that is just the floor of the shed. That's what I wondered.

It's just the floor. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's about it. This is a newer gym. It's fresh. Brand new strength co plates, I would say. I'm guessing they look like fresh out of the box.

I mean, everything looks pretty fresh in here. What bench is this? What bench they got? That is the Titan performance series adjustable bench. I don't know if I've seen that one very often. I'm not sure I have either. That's so I didn't recognize it. It looks like a decent bench.

Let me check the price on Jim Rader and see how much that. What do you think that? What do you think that Titan bench costs? Ooh. Ooh. It's a deal. $250, $300? $200 on sale.

$200 is not bad. No. Thanks to Jim Raider, I know that easily. How much it costs? What do we got? 15 gyms with that. 15 gyms with that there, bench. Number 19 most owned bench on Jim Radar.

There you go. It's been reviewed nine times. That's a three out of five. Yeah, not glowing reviews. No, build quality gets a, average is a 2.4, 4 out of 5. Yeah. That tells me something.

It's got several one-star reviews in here, too. Yeah. See some wobbles, some other complaints. So, I don't know. You'll have to find out, you know, how it fits your needs here. It seems like a mixed bag on the performance series of just. It doesn't cost very much, though, as fair to say. No, and actually, when I read the Shed Quarter review on it,

he got his on sale under $200. Okay. So, you know, when you're getting a bench for under $200, I think you can make a few more excuses for it too. For sure. It's all on a spectrum. Price. All relative.

Yeah. So that is. Unless you're talking felt load. And that is absolute. That's this. The buck stops at felt load. That's what I've always said. Stops and starts on the felt load.

If I can't sit on my ass, I'm going to pass. that's my rule in the gym always has been that one actually came from Brett perfect little sweetie that's a that's an incredible rule I had to see where he submitted that one in if I can't sit on my ass I'm gonna pass words to live by okay so that was our certified training facility of the week I also want to mention it like everyone there's a sale going on now over at barefoot it's the spring sale and that that it's 26% off of all shoes. Use discount code spring 26.

Normally I'd tell you to use discount code in Massonomics to save 10%. Throwing that out the window at our own. It's costing us, but I can't not let you find out about this deal. 26% off, code spring 26. But that does not go for that much longer. So make sure to utilize spring 26 as soon as you possibly can. The shoe I want to feature right now that I think looks particularly cool is the Ursus in Varsity Green color way. So it's got the white sole with the varsity green canvas upper.

Looks very cool. Check out the Ursus varsity green. Normally, $105. You can get it on sale right now. So you can get that for like under $80. That's a nice shoe for under $80. Barefoot. Dot store. Great.

All right. Ready to keep this party going. Maybe we should kick the rest of these people out of here. Yeah, all these looky lose. I just got so caught up. We'll do a radar report later. I was just getting so caught up and looking at all these gyms. Yep.

There's a good track of time. You know, I sit down on my computer at 8 a.m. And all of a sudden I look up and it's 1 p.m. I've just been looking at gyms for five straight hours. I just can't get enough. Okay, so we finished up our day one of our Wisconsin, Illinois, gym tour, or day two, we went almost to the border Wisconsin of Illinois. We had one more stop in Wisconsin, correct?

The final one was in Wisconsin still. Yes. Before crossing the border. I think it was in Racine, wasn't it? Yeah, something like that. So we went to Vivaconson. visit Big Zach, supporting member, certified training facility. And this is, we're starting this at 8.A.

was it 8 a.m. or 9? 8 a.m. showed up at his house. We'd never met Zach before. No. Never even talked to him before. Had no clue what he looked like. Had no idea what we're in for. And man, he brought the energy and it was so fun.

He brought the energy big time, didn't he? Oh, absolutely. You know, you just never know what, and there's nothing wrong. Everyone's at their own pace. You know, someone can be quite more quiet. and subdued and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but you just you don't know what level you're going to get someone at and Zach you know walks in he's like ours um um um walk in he says oh yeah we just got our have our new baby here you know he's been kind of

you know not like crazy but like just keeping it chill and then once the tour started and he's going i'm like recording i'm like man this is great he's just like getting into it and being animated and hasn't all this energy. It was, it was just a really fun tour to do. Yeah. Zach's guy that we got to recruit out to attend the Lyft Heartley v. Easy classic because you could just tell he would. He would.

He would. And I don't think he's, am I remembering right? I don't think he's competed before ever. I don't think he has, yeah, of any kind. But I'm like, man, you would like it here. Yes. Yes. He would have a great time.

Oh, his gym tour is great. got to check that out. Also, when we tour someone, when we tour everyone, we also usually find out about their other hobbies. And he was big into, he and his wife were into D&D and, Warhammer. Yeah, 40K and stuff. And like, that was the most education I've actually ever gotten on that. I feel like I understand it a little bit now. I've never looked into that before. I actually just, and I know there's several people in the Discord that are into it. but I've just never, ever taken five seconds to look into it as to, you know, what actually is this. And so he gave us kind of a little crash course. And he has a full library of like hundreds of books on it and, you know, tons of figurines.

Yes, he had a bookshelf like Florida ceiling of nothing but Warhammer books that he's read. And yeah, all the figurines. He had just cases and cases of them that he'd painted and put together. So, yeah, we were getting the rundown on that. Then he took us into another room full of all these fantasy. I mean, he reads a lot of fantasy type books, but just so many books that he's read. So it was cool, too.

I got some book recommendations from him, and it was cool to see all the stuff he's into. But the best story, do you remember this? How did that go? Because it was his friend that he's had since high school or an old friend of his? For sure, since high school. Yes, an old friend.

Yeah, and how did this go? They have been friends for over a decade or what. whatever it's been. And they're both into lifting. Yep. And his friend was like in town and he made, God, did he make a comment like, oh, yeah, there's this podcast that I listen to or something.

Yeah. And he's like, it's called the Massanomics podcast. He's like, dude, I listen to that too. It was something kind of like that. And then he's like, yeah, I'm in the discord. And he was like, oh, are you Adam? He was like, they were just talking about me. and he's last week on the podcast.

And he's like, that was you? And like neither of them knew that the other one even knew about Massonomics. And they were like both supporting members. And they had listened to us talk about the other one just like a week prior to that. And he's like, that was you? I'd listen to that. It's like they had cross paths virtually and never known it basically.

Yes. Like they literally did not know that the other was into it at all. Yeah, that was a good story. That was really funny. And he's like, that was you? Oh, that's crazy. That was very cool. Left Big Zach's house, headed into Illinois to, what is it L. Pinchase gym?

Is that what the gym's called? Antonio's. Yeah, Big Antonio's basement gym. And he has an entire basement gym decked out. If you followed him on Instagram or as YouTube, or anything like that, you've probably seen some of the stuff before. But his gym is, he has a ton of, he has a collection in there, I guess. He has a collection of, like he's got a lot of stuff in there.

And it's, you know, because he also, vintage ways. I don't say he dabbles in the, I shouldn't say his doubt he does vintage, you know, that not, he's a big time buyer and seller. Yeah. He's a, you know, as much of a Facebook marketplace hound as anyone that we've ever toured, I would say. And he has a lot of. He's an expert level Facebook marketplace guy.

He's a more collectible type items, you know, from the on-it kettlebells to some older vintage dumbbells. And he does a lot of flits. You know, I think he's flipped a lot of stuff for possibly profit and, like, subsidized a lot of what his existing gym is through that sort of process. Yeah, it's like the full on-it dumbbell collection, which is very, that's pretty sweet. Well, he has the nice storage for everything, so everything's on display nicely, too. You know, it's not just thrown in the corner. and gyms like that always just take a long time just to look at everything because there's so much to look at, you know,

that you've got to take your time and process everything. But yeah, it's a cool gym. He's got a really awesome set up there. Yeah, he has like the squat max MD off of the back of his rack. Which didn't even like, took me a long time to even realize that was there because there's so many other things to look at. Yeah. He's got that awesome York like squat stand that's turned into a TV stand.

That was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And he's got the chalky stuff. Bulls too. I would like, would really like to take one of those York chalk bowl stands home with me. And a legit avonco dumbbell set up. You know, like that with the nice rat. Like that's a, that's a real deal there. Yeah. Also, he hooked up, hooked us up with a buffet of snacks. Oh, yeah. Just smashed in the deli tray and the cheese tray. Yeah. I think he had more protein bars to go.

Forest Forest two, I think. Yeah. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he hooked it up. And then we were on to west side of Chicago. So we had a little bit of drive there to get to our last three. We're all fairly close to each other. So from there we went to very rural Illinois to Big Matt's house.

God, that was the next one. Man. Oh, yeah, because that was kind of a drive. That was like almost two hours, wasn't it? Right, right. Okay. So that felt so late in the day, but it actually kind of was by the time we... Yeah, because we were headed to our third one was that big Matthews house in the countryside.

You know, and we pulled up there and we're like, no, this does just feel like we're at home. You know, like we're just back home at someone's gym out in the country. And that was one of the only gyms we've toured that really is just out in the country, you know, like there hasn't been... We were talking about that. There hasn't been a lot of gyms that aren't in a city or a town. of some kind of the Phillips's is and that was about it that was about it that came to mine for yeah and that he also Matt also had a chicken coop with a bunch of chickens in it some both them country people and their chickens yeah and uh and you had met matt at home gym con or sorry at the gym they

yeah he came uh with his wife in like september and he had we had talked a lot about my vintage weights collection and he wasn't into it yet at the time but he's like yeah i think i'm into it now you know he saw the wall and he's like, this is sweet. And we can confirm he is into it now. Yes. His gym is a detached garage. You know, it's like a big, large two-stall garage. And that tour again, people are going to be like, wow, this is quite the setup that he's got here.

There's a monolith combo rack, the vintage weights collection, which is an entire wall of vintage weights and some really cool ones. And then probably, even though that stuff is all really interesting, probably with his, the neatest thing was his vintage or, I don't know, vintage, but his desirable commercial, discontinued commercial machine collection that he had. Some of the best machines we've ever seen in a home gym for sure. It has the Nautilus pullover. Yeah, the Nautil chain driven pullover. Like, man, like that was the first. person we sat on.

What was that brand? Was it like a. AFS, I think. It's that AFS hip, hip squats or hip press, AFS hip press. And it's,

it's, it's kind of hard to describe. It is kind of like a leg press, but what made this machine crazy is that he said he's received offers for over 20 grand for this machine. Like there was never a ton that were ever built. It's like Legosaurus-esque. It kind of is in the way that that's what I said is like if they didn't build Legosaurus up

and like somehow figured out how to make it like only be a six by six foot square or something. Yeah. That's actually bigger than that though. But it kind of has sort of a similar vibe to that. And it was cool. Like, you know, you got to use a little bit. I got to try it out. And it is a really cool machine.

And yeah, I mean, he's gotten big offers on this. Like he's had someone tell him like, oh, someone would pay up to 40 grand for that thing even. And then, I mean, It was an impressive. Also had the same as, who else has this? He's got the, I carry it. Yeah, Evan Centipani, Icarian standing leg curl, the two-leg standing leg curl.

And Big Matt actually did the double leg, standing leg curl on it. Did it. That was good. What was the other? Oh, did you have that, was it like a Nautilus? Oh, actually, there was two things there. one that Nautilus

What was it like a Delta Or fly machine of some kind? Oh no that other one though Yeah but the white one though That was a Nautilus also But that other one what was that one That first one that you sat on That was quite the machine actually

That one kind of blew my mind That was one where we go to a lot of gyms And not much surprises us But our takeaway from that first machine was How have none of these home gym companies Built this? tried to replicate this. Because I think it would sell.

Like I actually, and I don't, I don't think that about a lot of things that are, you know. Because it was basically, because it was a shoulder, press. I think it was a seated shoulder press.

Like seated belt raise. Yeah, a rear dealt raise. And then it was also like this upright row. Yeah. And they all, I didn't try it. They were all legit.

They all looked good. Like you were doing. They were all really good. This actually feels good. And the machine, you know, it is a commercial machine, but it didn't seem like any one of them

was compromising. It seemed like everyone was built with that movement in mind. Like it wasn't like, oh, maybe we could make it do one more thing. It was. No. And there was some really interesting engineering of how it all worked,

too. And it was simple. Like it wasn't like a thousand adjustments to change between them. It's, that's the machine that, uh, I think you have to watch the full tour to see that, see that one more.

I would be surprised if someone's not doing some version of that in the next couple of years because that actually I could see a market for that. Then he called his buddy, uh, from the commercial gym that's listening to the show big Josh corn I like his name is corn and he's from the city of DeKalb which is just great he came up on his Harley and he delivered to us Portillo's finally got to have it and the shake we got the sandwich and the shake

the cake shake it was good that was Portillos we've heard like Finn and those guys talk about Portillo's for a long time and never had it we don't have it here doesn't make it out to our portion of the Midwest but Portillo's, I don't know, hot beef sandwich with like peppers and cheese on it and stuff, right? Yep. And I definitely did not need to eat, but it was just too good. Just had to do it. Had to keep shoveling down, you know?

Yep. And so we got, I think that was kind of everything from his gym, though, right? Yeah, I think so. Then we didn't have too long of a drive to get to sabotage Sean Logan's. Yeah, his wrestling gym. A lot of unique gyms on this trip. Maybe this is the most unique. I mean, this gym is one of a kind from obviously the wrestling ring is a shock.

But the way he has to decorate it. I mean, he has the aesthetic down in that gym. It is good. And it's so unassuming from the outside, you know. Yes, you would never think there's a gym in this building. It's in a town of, I don't know, like no people pretty much. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's just, you never know that that's what this building is. And you go in there. And from the second you walk in, his whole office area with all the wrestling magazines and old books and the arcade there, there's a tanning bed. And then you walk into the gym and it is just shocking. Like, just the array of stuff he has. And it's so cool. All a mix of wrestling and lifting decor, like combined.

Yeah, like, bodybuilding, yeah, wrestling. It's all there. And what was crazy about his story, and we go into this in depth on the gym tour, but he wanted the universal machines because he saw, was it Branch Warren? Is that where he?

I think so. Yeah, Metro Flex in Texas. Branch Warren using those universal machines. And if people don't know what universal machine is, it's like, think of kind of like it's round tubing. It's like chrome round tubing. Yeah. And it just has kind of a long lever to it.

And stuff. Yeah. And if you look it up, you'll probably recognize like seeing one of these. from some point. And he wanted like one of the machines and some guy had one for sale for like, God, didn't the guy want like $1,000 or something for it? No, I thought it was like $300 for it.

He thought it was $300 for one machine. The very first machine he wanted. He talked to a guy and a guy had like $1,000 for one or something. He's like, uh, something like that. I really don't want to pay $1,000 just for this one machine. So he just kind of sat around and then, yeah, he ended up this other guy had some universal machines listed. and he thought it was like, oh, 300 bucks a machine.

So I went to this guy's place where I think it was in Wisconsin. And the guy's like, oh, no, it's like six machines. You get all of them for $300. Yeah. You know, these all have weight stacks and everything. Yeah. He got like six universal machines for like $300. And that's kind of the basis of his gym.

But then from there he has hammer strength, life fitness. Sybex. Sybex is you have a rogue rack in there too, I think. Yeah. Oh. And he's got, yeah, he does have some new equipment because he has like the Titan lap low row, you know, as a rep fitness adjustable bench and all that. Very, the gym set up there is not lacking.

No, no, it's like the machine. I mean, the equipment for lifting is legit. It's, it's good. And very cool. Like, just like, there again, just really machines you do not see in people's gyms very often where it's just super interesting. And then, of course, there's a giant wrestling ring. And I've never stepped in a wrestling ring before. No.

So that was cool. Man, there's way more bounce to those things than I would have ever guessed. Yeah. Like, I know there's bounce. And you watch the guys. It's a jarring. But it does, you're not used to it. It does catch you off guard how loud it is when things start slamming.

And the ropes are stiff. They are ropes, aren't they? Yeah, that's not like you're like, ooh, a bungee cord to jump against. It's like, oof, no, that's a tight rope. When you start running around the ring a little bit doing that. And it was so funny because he goes, oh, yeah, like, you guys got to do like a finisher on me before you leave. It's like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. You know, so thinking of some short content here.

Yeah. And I think he wanted to do. So this will make sense to some people that know wrestling and no sense to anyone else. What is the, is it like the 3D? Is that the Dudley's like finishing move? And he's like showing us some of the. stuff and I'm like, God, okay. So someone picks him up.

We're both capable of that. But then someone has to come like flying from somewhere else and also land on their back too. And he was just so confident in us that I'm starting to think like, oh yeah, I could just fly around and land on my back. And then I'm like, wait a minute. No, I can't do that. Like I will just shatter my back.

In my mind, I'm thinking, I can totally be the guy to pick him up and hold him on my shoulders. So like, I'm good. I know I can do that. I'm like, if you guys think you can do the rest of this, we're in because I can do that part. I cannot do any of the other parts of this. We're talking about Tanner lifting him up, you know, high above your head and then coming in and flying and doing RKO while he's like eight feet off the ground.

And I'm like, wait a minute, I can't do that. I'd be in just trouble if I start doing that stuff. So we're trying to think of a finisher. And we do arrive at the double choke slam, which I think was the perfect one. And we set up. We did it like five times. Oh, yeah, the first time we picked him up. So as an adult, I don't do MMA or anything.

You know, I've played contact sports in high school, football wrestling. I'm not a stranger to a little tussle, you know. I have done it before. I've done it my day, but it's been a long time. And probably not really since I've been an actual adult that I've just like thrown someone around, you know. Yeah. And the first time we picked him up for this choke slam, you and me both. And we lift him above our heads and slam him down.

and, you know, he's trying to, like, get to his back and also exaggerate the move. Yeah. For a split second and then the ring slammed so loud. I'm like, oh, my God, we just killed this man. It does. And my immediate thought is, oh, my God, we just paralyzed and killed this guy.

Because it's just so violent scene. It was. And then he pops up. I'm like, oh, okay, he's okay. We did it like three or four more times. But every time it sort of catches you off guard how it just it absolutely does. picking up another man and slamming him,

lifting him way above your head and then slamming him down with someone else. It's a more violent move than you think. Also, it's, I mentioned this too. I'm like, it feels so easy when someone else is also lifting up and then like they're going along with it intentionally too. You know, it's like,

I don't even know if I'm doing anything. It feels like it's all just happening. But then I watch it, I'm like, oh, he's like, you know, he's like way up there. I'm like,

Who'd lifted him? It felt like it just, it's like we got in the cars. You go, I don't know if it was all you, but I felt like I didn't lift him at all. And I go, I was thinking the exact same thing. I felt like I didn't lift him either. But part of that is he's jumping. But also he says, well, I don't know if he weighs 200 pounds. And we're both, we're using two hands.

It's like, well, we're both using two hands. So we're basically like, it's 50 pounds a hand. Like that's nothing to be lifting someone up. Right. Yeah, it was fun to do that. That was really cool. Yeah. Yeah, that was cool.

And then he hooked us up because his parents own a really cool barbecue joint in that town. So he hooked us up. Oh, the next town over technically. Oh, yeah, that's right. It was just a little over. Yeah, that's right. So they hooked us up with barbecue. We grabbed it quick on the way to our next stop.

Yeah. And we got to kind of look. We talked to his mom there and got to kind of look at the restaurant a little bit. And it was good. And when you see the restaurant, you say, oh, yes, I see where he gets his. Inspiring style. from, you know, a lot of, in the family.

A lot of 90s, you know, early 2000s, 90s, 80s pop culture all over. And, yeah, it's a really cool, really cool look. And our next stop was, of course, the last stop, the fifth gym tour of the day, which broke a PR for us, the most gym tours in one day ever. Fifth one was none other than Chicago's biggest influencer. So we headed it back to the city. Downtown right into the city.

underneath the skyscrapers to see Huckfin barbells. At the base of the Sears Tower. Yeah. I didn't, I knew it was close to downtown. I didn't know it was in the Sears Tower. So in there, yeah. And we got there.

They had the great welcoming party for us. You know, the whole family was out there, big boss man to all the little barbells. All the little barbells. Everyone there to greet us. We know, they were all here in western northeast South Dakota this summer.

But we wanted to get right to business, because it was getting late. And we knew that there'd be some distractions as the night went on. So we wanted to get right to be very easy to get off of business. Yes. So we were pretty focused. And also daylight was going. We're like we wanted to get some outside shots before it was just dark out.

And so we got pretty much right to business. And Huck Finn, his gym. So if you follow it out, you know he's got this huge barn gym. He's got a ton of space. As far as floor space goes, one of the biggest gyms is one of the biggest gyms. one of the biggest gyms we've ever toured in that way. Also, I did not realize how many machines he has. He has a lot of machines.

Yeah. That he acquired for free everyone that he ever paid a dollar for. First time we've ever seen another OEI machine. OEI is what my lap pulldown is. It's an old company out of Minnesota. He had an OEI lying leg curl, which was cool to see one of those out in the wild. He had, I think he had some Nautilus stuff too, didn't he? Yeah.

He might have the most gym equipment never paid for that I've ever seen for. seen and they like all of it was so-and-so gave that to me i got that from this guy it's like that was the story on all of it well i thought the leg extension you know you'd mentioned like oh this looks like it the size looks off because yeah leg pad on it was no lie of i mean the diameter might have been a foot across it was big right right and then you got up there and it looked like a perfect fit actually it was yeah we tried out a lot of leg extensions on uh you did you did you actually did a leg extension in almost every gym we went to.

A lot of leg extending because we weren't pretending, so you know them legs was extending. Huck Finn's gym, you know, it'll be fun. For new one that's a fan of Huck Finn, particularly you're going to like that gym tour. There was a lot of horsing around in there, I guess, too, right? Yep, yep. So, yeah, it was really fun just doing that gym tour.

And then by the time that was done, it's like, oh, got to crack a beer here. Finally, Huck Finn will crack a beer with us. It's because, I mean, what I've always said is you don't trust a man that won't drink a beer with you. I've always said that before. And he'd been kind of cagey about it in the past, but he finally was willing to drink a beer with us. We got him, did he have one beer? You know, I remember we were a little bit into it.

And he said, wow, I've never met anyone that can drink beer like you guys. Usually five is way more than enough for any of us. And we were, I mean, we were way past five. He's like, I've never seen anyone drink more than five beers in my life. And he's like, I think he said he's done like six or seven one time. Yeah. And we were just going. He just, he couldn't believe it.

He was just taking it. He said, I got to leave this to the pros. You guys, I've never seen anything like this in my life. We did sit around and drink quite a few beers. We did. It was really late. Actually, I think at one point, if you didn't say, yeah, I better get to bed. Well, it was one in the morning.

If you didn't say that, I'm pretty sure I could have just went for another couple hours. Yeah, which would have, and we also had to be on the road by like 8 a.m. the next day. Yeah. So, but yeah, I felt fairly decent the next one. I actually did too. It was more, it was more just the staying up late than anything. Yeah. Because we drank beers before, you know.

Yeah. It wasn't our first one like it was for Finn. Karen made us even made shirts for us that night while we were sitting there. You know, we got to sit at Karen's corner. We got to talk the apparel. business, the ins and outs of it, Karen started making shirts. I totally forgot until the next day that, until we got home the next day and I was taking him out that I got the Karen cut on one of mine too.

So I got the official, I finally got a little cutoff I could wear for once. And yeah, it was just really fun. I had a really good time there. That was, that was a lot of fun. Then we up early. Actually, me and Finn. Well, we did stay there. Like, maybe that's not clear to him.

We actually did stay at his house, too. Like, he was, they were insistent on us staying. So we stayed at their house that night. And that's actually, that marks the first time we've ever stayed at someone's house on a gym tour. That's true. That's true. I was the first one up and then Finn was second. And I was sitting in like some room of his place there.

And he was like, I don't sit here. Let's go. And we went out to the gym. And we sat at, he has stadium seating in his gym. And we watched a coop. A coop, gym tour video. I was at, like, a room at the far end of the hallway. And I was awake, but I just didn't hear anyone moving.

And I'm like, I don't want to be the first one up. So I just kept laying there. And then you text me and you said, or then eventually I'm thinking, well, I guess he'll shower at least while everyone's sleeping. And then you text me, you go, oh, we're out in the gym. So I had it down there and I walk in on YouTube watching the Coop Will Tennyson gym tour. I'm like, oh, a couple of home gym nerds over here. Which I hadn't realized was like. 25 minute long

Voltra ad. Yeah, on Power Voltra ad. Yeah. I hadn't watched. Actually, so Finn and I had a fun conversation about that actually.

Uh-huh. Because we talked about watching that video a little bit. Or no, I think I watched the one that was on Will Tennyson's channel, not Coops one or something, but I hadn't seen that part. And yeah, the entire time we were in there talking,

all it was was just them demoing the Voltra the entire time. Okay. Okay. Then we were on. the road Sunday morning. Our final tour of the tour took us to actual the belly of Chicago, right? I mean, go right along the lake. Super cool drive.

Actually, a really cool drive in the morning to downtown Chicago. That was a really cool drive. There was not much traffic. Yeah, I had only been to Chicago. I went to Chicago like, I don't know, 2015 or something for Lalapalooza, which is kind of a whole other beast in itself. But that was like my only experience with Chicago. was just a couple days there for that. And so to get in there and to drive on whatever that road is that goes along the lake,

it was so cool. Like just the sheer size of the city, all those buildings, you got the lake on one side, the city on the other. There's like people, you know, there's like beaches. There's people running,

riding bikes. Like it was really, really cool to, uh, to have that, to take that drive in. Yep. And then we went to the M Torture Chamber,

which, correct? Yeah, that gym did not disappoint. It was, it's a nice gym. So that's Big Steve or Big Stephen, right? Yep, Big Steve, yeah. And on Jim Radar, he's number five on the all-time leaderboard as Rogue Crusher. So you can check out the M Torture Chamber there.

And he has put in the work on his profile too. Like he's, I think he said he has officially reviewed every single piece of equipment that exists. Cataloged everything in his gym. Yeah. Like every single thing that. It's in there. He has a lot of stuff. Yeah.

He has a very meticulous, like. And some unique, some stuff we don't typically see, too. And his square footage is not that big. No. No, yeah. Like, it's, as far as, you know, home gym tours go, it's like average-ish, maybe even smaller than, you know, like, because when we're talking garages, you can have a lot of space.

Right. This is in his basement. And this is a hundred and however many-year-old, Like a hundred and two-year-old, 120-year-old house in Chicago, yeah. Right. Very impressive setup, though. And, like, the aesthetics of it are really cool.

Like, he's got this red and black theme that you'll see, or you can even see it on Jim Radar, but we talked a lot of equipment in that. We really got, whereas fins, you can imagine we're not digging into the nuts and bolts of every piece of equipment. It's more of the story of each thing, where it's two contrasting tours there where Finns a lot of stories of how it was acquired

and that sort of thing. On Steve's, we get into a, if you're an equipment nerd, you're going to love that one. And huge, like lots of equipment. He has the story of, yeah, so anyways, after I bought this, I was in talks with the company asking him about this and this. And there's many pieces where he was talking directly with the creator or the company and either figuring out why. they did this or after he talked to them, they made some changes.

And that's definitely a recurring subject of his. You got to try the strength erg for the first time. That's true. He actually put me through and I got, I was like, how am I going to do the rest of the tour? I am very winded now. That is, so we'd never seen one of those yet. That is an interesting piece.

I can understand why some people wouldn't like it. But I can also see how, if, assuming you can make that work in your training, it can be fun because there is a lot of variety on that. for sure i don't even know what you'd compare to it really is just sort of a machine of its own that's what i would say it is nothing much compared to directly it's kind of like uh you just sit down and here's this little cardio challenge and you pick what what type of cardio you want to do on it but right i i thought it was pretty interesting i until then i never really looked into them i had sort of a vague idea of what they did but i walked away from that thinking okay i can see

why someone would get this thing pros and cons of it a kind of having like that at in Massonomics gym is it almost there again does too many different things where I'm like, nope, people, you, maybe it was like the last podcast we, or maybe it was a gym tour when you said it, but it was like,

you know, the fatal flaw of some of this home gym stuff is it's too adjustable. So that does too many things. But if you're just the only person that ever uses it. Oh, yeah, you can know that. You're going to sit down.

You're going to study it, figure it out. And yeah, everyone else is just like ripping on handles. I mean, it is concept. I'm just going to, I'm actually going to break shit until it's ruined. And then I'm like, yep, I'm done.

My work here's done. What's the string rips out of the thing that I'll know I'm done for the day. Yep. Destroyed it. I'm good. It being concept too, like, you know it is really sturdy. And you know if anything breaks. If it actually were to break, like, you're going to find a replace a piece.

But if there's a piece of machine that, really that people are going to, like, mess with and not get, that would be the one because that did more things than I, I, I didn't know that thing did as many things as it did. What's this? tear piece, do. Let me just smash it with a hammer. Let me jam it into here. Broke it, perfect.

I'll go home now. I like to see Tanner fix this one. He had that. The other one that kind of, you know, we talk about this a lot. There's a lot of gyms we go to. I love seeing everyone's setup, but it's not too often where I think,

ah, I could incorporate that in or something like that. Yeah. He did do the thing on his dumbbell stand where he had the center post with a lateral raise attachment on it. And like that is, it works pretty slick. Like I know people did it, but I'd never seen one in person. And then after seeing it,

yep, I get why people do this. It is pretty nice to add this in and not take up space on your actual rack. The thing he had that I was really most interested in on his squat rack on the top cross member, he had the prime handles, like the adjustable handles for pull-ups, like the adjustable pull-up handles on that dial almost, and then they're like the prime rotate handles.

I kind of want to get one of those set up for one of my racks at the gym. Yeah, I think that would be a good one for the gym. I think people would like that a lot. And those, I didn't try them. You got to kind of try a little bit. They did. They'd seem like they actually just worked good. Yeah, no, those were legit.

Those were really cool. He also had a techno gym treadmill and kettlebells, which is an instrument. Yes. You don't typically run into techno gym stuff a whole lot in home gym tours. No, no. That kind of wrapped up our last tour of the tour. Then we would have liked us. If we had time, we were going to go out and eat lunch with them.

But there was no time. By the time we got done there, it's like now we got to go to the airport. And it really just kind of worked out all about right. Like we weren't sitting at the airport for very long even. No, by the time we got there, like I thought maybe we left with a little extra time, but by the time we got there, of course, you hit some traffic. Yeah, line was pretty long. Yeah, actually, we finally found some real traffic too.

Yeah, they hadn't hit traffic like that since we were in California that one time. This was the most comparable thing. And by the time we got to the airport, got through security, got about to our gate, we sat down, ate some food, walked over to our gate and on the plane five minutes later. So, yeah, the timing was all pretty good there. And then back, just one flight, one flight sweet. Yeah, and then we even got back in the daylight. I mean, you got, you were able to drive almost all the way home in daylight, weren't you?

Yeah, most of the way in day. I mean, it was raining most of the time, which is, may. Oh, yeah, it was. That's right. Yes, it was so sunny and nice and the whole trip. The weather was really good. Really perfect. It was.

It was. 70 degrees everywhere we went. Because that's always the joke with us, too, on these trips is you can almost guarantee it's going to be downpouring rain at some point. We're going to be on an interstate while. just completely dark out going, you know, 80. Rarely have we ever not been on a packed interstate going 80, middle of night, downpouring every time.

It's like the most white knuckle situation, and for hours of that. Yep, get in the car and somehow drive that way for 30 hours. Everywhere you go, it's going to be dark raining and really fast traffic. Everyone drives really fast everywhere we go. The whole way in Chicago, you know, we're on the interstate. I don't know.

What was the speed limit, a lot of section 70? I'm like 70s and so I was maybe going even 75 a lot of the time. And people are passing you like you're just not like. People are often going 100, I'm pretty sure. I mean, they're at the bare minimum going 90. But there was one time when we

both remarked on it because I was in say a center lane out of like four or five and I was going over the speed limit. You are. Yeah. I was going like five miles and over five miles over. And like five suddenly passed us on all sides. And it was like you were standing still.

25 miles an hour faster than us. At least. I mean, for someone to pass you that faster and you're going 75, like the speed limit on the interstate in South Dakota is 80, which typically means I drive 85.

And it's very, like when people pass you, it's like a pass that takes a while. You know, like an annoyingly long time. Because like, okay, if you're going 85 and they're passing you, they're going like 88 or something.

It's very, very rare that someone passes you with any type of speed. And here we're driving 75 and it's just like, we might as well be going 20 because these cars are blowing the doors off. They're just flying by. And it's not even just one or two. It's just lines of them just ripping by you. Here's one other thing about the rental cars. Why do they always have to turn the automatic lights off?

I don't know. I mean, it's a thing. It's absolutely a thing that they do. Let's just get to the bottom of this right now. I want to know why. I want to know why do the rental car companies, because. I fall for it every time. Like we go out at night for the first time,

I assume the lights are on. And it's always like these well-lit residential streets. And we drive for a while until I'm like, oh, yeah, I was definitely driving without any lights on for a while. According to the Google overview here, it says to prevent the battery drain while parked as rental staff frequently move idle or service vehicles in bright, enclosed or shady areas.

Well, I'm like, when they're moving in the couple's idle, the lights, I mean, it's not like the battery's going to die there. But I guess underneath the parking, you know, a lot of times you're in a parking garage, maybe having the lights on are annoying in there. Right. But yeah, I don't know. But it's almost a guarantee that those lights will be off. Yeah. That was the trip. It was a good one.

That was a trip. Got home. I was pretty tired and I didn't have to drive an extra three hours. So I'm sure you were really tired. Yeah, I was tired. It's, it's, it's, it takes a lot. It's also the thing of on Monday going back to reality where you kind of feel like you're living in.

Yeah, that part sucks. La La Land for like three days and everything's just so awesome and exciting. And then it's just, that's the act of the suck. All the people that just, everyone wants to chat about gym stuff and massonomic stuff and everything that's going on. And it's so much fun. And we expend all this brain power crumbing up. with really fun, creative ideas.

And yeah, then you go, write those, you got 50 emails to write, damn it, let's get going here. Yeah. I did. It was by the last,

it was at the M Torture Chamber when we were doing the, we'd done the tour. We were recording the intro. And I'm just like, and that we always have to brainstorm a fair bit on the intros and like what we want to say and kind of script it just a little bit.

and make sure we're on the same page and make sure it's going to, because we're also aligning that with what our title and thumbnail are probably going to be. And I just, my brain almost could not go. I'm like, I just, I can't remember like five words. Because usually it's a conversation of,

okay, yeah, here's the angle and let's make sure we say this and this. And you're like, oh, I'll say this. And I go, oh,

good idea. What do you think of this? And you'll say, yeah. And they still like, it's a little brainstorm. session back and forth. And I remember at the time just thinking, this just, it's just white noise in my brain. It can't, it can't make words anymore. I got nothing left. It was just,

and then we'd come up with something I'd be like, yeah, that's good. That's good. And I'm like, and then like, neither of us could think of it. I don't know. I don't know. It is just the thing. I mean, I'm saying like five seconds after we thought of it. Oh, what was that? How was that word? Just say that back to me what I just said and neither of us know. And it is just the thing of you are running on fumes at the end of the trip because you've just been just dialed in, you know, for 48 straight hours. Because yeah, at the beginning of the trip, we were just knocking those things out left and right, like, boom, boom.

And like you do one take and be like, that's it. He did it. Nope, nothing to change. And here all of a sudden I'm like, I don't even know what's good or bad anymore. I don't even know what you're saying, Tanner. Well, because sometimes you can run into word salad where you're like, wait, I know those words are all approximately the right words, but does that sentence even make sense?

I think that was running into where I'm like, I can't even, I don't even know if that sentence makes sense. I think one of my pieces of feedback is I'm like, I don't know if grammatically that's right at all. And I've never had that be a criticism ever as how the grammar is. But it's like in my brain, I'm like, yeah, I don't think these words go together.

Right, right. It's like they're all words that individually make sense for the, what we're trying to achieve here. But in that, yeah, that in a row, it's not really saying anything. And that is just from days ago and crazy. Days of going hard, it catches up to you. Okay.

On Jim Radar, did we have any, any big Jim Radar goings-ons? Well, first, I do got some things behind the scenes, some big stuff that we are working on making progress on. So stay tuned on that. Could be a week. Could be a month.

Could be two months. We don't know. Yeah. Actually, I do know. Probably fairly soon. It won't be a week. It'll be maybe a little longer than a week. But fairly soon.

So stay tuned there. On the other side of things, let's see. On our map, we now have over, on Jim radar, there's over 500 certified training facilities. that are all actually certified. There's a lot more certified people that have certified training facilities than that, but 500 so far have added theirs to over 500, actually 513 at the moment have added

theirs to Jim Radar. And that's just the certified training facilities actually. So cool number to see there. Here's one piece of equipment that I don't know why I just kind of look past this. And it sort of makes sense, but it surprised me. I'm looking at the most owned attachment. category and there's this one piece that actually kind of jumped out at me so when i go currently it's number seven on the list it's the mutant metals ultimate dip attachment but that number seven isn't

totally realistic because number one is the drink spotter light number two is the drink spotter excel number three is the barbell anchor which you could make the argument maybe that should be in storage category and not attachment right you know like that actually probably would make more sense for it we'll talk about that maybe that maybe that'll get adjusted but then number four is the drink spotter chill So by the time So the drink spotter, should the drink spotters be an attachment or Or miscellaneous? Yeah.

Those also I don't think attachment is maybe the right spot for those. So I could see those moving too. But so I'm just going to fine tuning some of that stuff. Yeah. You know, it's all work in progress. You had to start somewhere. So if we just kind of scratch that first four items there, then we're really getting two actual attachments here.

Right. And it's either cable attachments or things that can attach to your rack. So is the barbell anchor storage then? I kind of think it is. Like that's, you're getting it to store barbells, right? I mean, that's what you're getting it for.

That really feels, I mean, it is attached to something. Yeah. And I can see why we got there because that was one of the first brands we ever put into Jim Radar. You know?

Right. But if, that is now storage. Oh, boy. Well. Well, no, actually that.

that page says a little bit. Yeah, it's probably a little bit of cash there. It probably takes a bit. But if we look at the next row, when we're getting to actual attachments, cable attachments and rack attachments, it actually we've talked to, I think you and I've talked about this.

It is surprising this rogue V-grip cable attachment handle. It's only been around a few months. And that is as far as these metrics go, actually the number one attachment on the website. 103 gyms have that thing. Tied with the fringe sport mammoth belt. Yeah, which is then tied with the fringe sport mammoth. with belt squat, which also 103 gyms have.

Still kind of, that one's been around longer, so it sort of makes sense. But it's not cheap by any means. You know, that rogue V grip, is that about $100, something like that? Yeah, I thought it was under $100. Maybe it's $80 or $90. It is. $95. Yeah.

So like that, that one's just, it's fast, it's surprising how fast that one got to be, essentially a number one attachment. The mammoth belt school. but also somewhat surprising. It's not like cheap, cheap, but it has been around a little longer, so I guess I could believe it. But what does surprise me a little bit

is that Mutant Meadows UDA being in my new made-up rankings, the number third most popular attachment on here. And with 91 gyms, it's not like it's, it's not like there's a huge drop-off. It's at 91. It's only a few behind the top. $360 on Rogues website.

And that's kind of what my point was here is that the, you know, it's $360 from Rogue. I think if you bought it for mutant metals, it was even more than that. And it's also in a somewhat competitive space where there's a lot of cheaper options available. You know, the Rotating V-Grip, okay, I mean, you could, you know,

you can save 50 bucks if you want to get a cheaper one. And like the Melmuth Belt Squad is kind of in a league of its own. There's not a whole lot of competition there. But if you're talking, hey, I want to do dips. There's a ton of options you can do. and so to see the UDA at number three sort of surprise me, but then when I think about our gym tours, that's in a lot of gym tours that we go to.

You know, and when we start looking at people that have more premium high-end stuff, you can almost guarantee that they're going to have an ultimate dip attachment in their gym. So I just hadn't really paid much attention to that category, and that one did surprise me how that category kind of plays out. Yeah, one other note I had on those attachments, because that's just came up.

So that rogue V-grip. I'm starting to wonder, I don't even know what's cheap and what's expensive anymore and what my brain has gotten skewed to because all this like stuff because I had been saying, oh, I can't, like,

I was like, it seems really affordable. Like at $95, I'm like, that seems like kind of a steal. And then I saw someone just on Facebook, uh, home gym Facebook. Facebook today that it was like oh it's super expensive but it's nice and I'm like and I wasn't immediately like oh what are those idiots saying I'm like maybe I'm wrong I don't even know so it's

like 90 because to me 95 is kind of cheap for a high end cable attachment but then I'm like more is 95 dollars expensive I don't know I'm like the drink spotter costs like $50. It's like how cheap are you going to get that is the thing with all this it's all relative you know right on online and to one person it's insane to spend a thousand dollars on a squat rack right and oh I I pulled mine out of marketplace for $50 and it was in some guy's garage for 30 years and like to those people spending any money is crazy but as more time go and then the other thing we talk about is with all this you know you can get it. something from Amazon that does 90% of the same thing for probably, I don't know, $40 maybe.

Well, that's what I was actually, that's the real test, right? I guess you go to Amazon and go to probably just attachment and you probably get to some sort of a comparable pretty quickly, right? Amazon attachment, got all the faux mag grips. Um, here. Yeah, they got a cable attachment set. Where's the, what do you find as like a compare? It's kind of the hard thing too because there's not something that's really quite as good as that. I know.

There's not a direct comparable. It's funny that you have that one in the gym that is so comparable actually. Yeah, I don't know what that is though. That thing seems like kind of an anomaly. Well, that's what I'm saying is the fact that it's in the gym and it's so old, you think, well, yeah, these must be everywhere. and now actually looking, it's not really everywhere. We're both just browsing Jim Ray.

Okay, here's one. Here we go. Here we go. This one is, here is the comparable. It's called the Meteor Tricep V pushdown bar. Can you get that in America or is Meteor? Okay, yeah. Yeah, okay.

So they have that for like $31, $32. Right. Right. And it's got like the rubber rips on the end of it. But it probably does basically the same thing. And it is a third of the price. So maybe $95 is expensive. I said it's cheap, but maybe it's expensive.

I think, though, you get used to looking at higher-end stuff where people can spend many hundreds of dollars on an attachment. And then you look and you say, well, it's rogue, which is considered the premium brand, one of the premium brands in the space. It's made in America. You know it's really good quality.

I think under 100 is pretty fair for the price. Like, I don't think it's an old. overpriced product by any means, which there are rogue products that I can say, I do think are overpriced. You know, I don't think that's overpriced for what it is. It's still not cheap. It's by no means a cheap product. Like we just said, there's a $30 version you get on Amazon.

It's three times as expensive. Is it three times as good? I mean, there's people that would say yes. I'd say, yeah, probably not three times as good. But, right. Yeah, that is just one of those weird ones, though, where your brain does get a little skewed on what is the right price for something. Right.

well and even a comparable you know like the four six version i think is like 250 bucks or something so um you know that is that the one that big steve had yeah yeah and so there you're seeing what is a somewhat comparable thing and it is significantly more also euclips has doesn't like the w grip yeah they have one too yeah that's on my radar yeah what do they call you i think There's isn't too bad. Yeah, the W grip. There's is $60. So also not too bad.

I don't know if Euclips is made in America. You know, that for some people doesn't matter at all. But yeah. How much did you say there's this? I'm checking. The Eclipse is. Oh, it is. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It's on sale. Normally it's $75. I don't know if that sales an all the time thing or just right now. But so that was what I was looking at. Just some attachment, some of the market on attachment. things.

So that was a radar report. Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention? Radar love. Redar report. All right. Anything else we want to touch on this week

besides potentially a strength co-ad? I think once we touch on that. Oh, do you want to talk about your cardio challenge? The 50 Cal? Yeah, did we talk about that or not? I don't think, did we talk about that or we did we did we did we did? Didn't we talk about the fifth?

I think it was on the plane you were explaining it to me for the first time. I don't think we've talked about this or am I going crazy here or did. I don't know. I thought we did. Maybe we did and then we just discussed it in person on the plane. I think we did. I think I already talked about it. Yeah, I think you're right.

I'll do an update when I do it. I've done it a couple other. I've done it a couple easier ones just like actually as warmups where I'm like, oh, I don't want to be sick. I'm just going to, like, my thought is like, what can I get my time to, like, because I know I can go faster, but can I, like, shape, can I keep doing it for a while in my, like, more moderate time starts to come down, you know, a time where I'm like, okay, I feel pretty good and I get done. So I've been doing a lot of like two minute and 20 or two minute and 30 second ones. I can do that pace. Okay.

And then, like, get off of it and go still function, work out. but I am still when I really get the ambition I want to try and do one where I do like a 90s. I think I could get 90 seconds probably. I don't know. It's easier to say than it is to do,

but I think I... Because what is your time? 150 something. Is that what you were at? 156 is what, and that was my first time trying it. Yeah. But I went pretty hard.

But I got done and I'm like, I could have got a, I would have felt worse. Yeah, but it does seem like If you really were going for it, you should be able to knock 10 seconds off when you're making a real effort at it, you know? 26 seconds would be knocking a lot off. Oh, yeah. That's far easier said than done because I didn't feel good after that one.

You know, like, I didn't get done and be like, yeah, easy. It's a Sunday. This is the only thing I'm doing today. I'm just giving this one real hard run. That's what I want to warm up a little for it. So I'm loose. Right. Where I'm actually going to warm up.

Yeah, actually my training update. I had strained my calf running last week. We talked about that. I won't go into it again. But it almost comical at this point. I had a five-by-five squad on Monday. So my first day back in the gym at our, after our trip, I went up.

So it was 350, five-by-five. First four sets all done. All went really good. And then I have a lot of times on my fifth set of like a five-by-five, I'm like, I want this to be my best one. Like that'd be sweet if I get done and be like, I feel like I smoked those. And first rep, my first rep of the final set was the best rep I'd done. I'm like, oh, I'm going to spank this set.

Like, I'm going to get done and look at the video and be like that. Those absolutely flew every one of them. Yeah. And the second rep, like halfway up, my calf had been feeling good. I've completely unnoticeable in all of my lifting. actually by the end of the trip, like just took a few days and it was feeling good again.

On the second rep halfway up, just from like the intense bracing or like the strain, I did it in the middle of a squat rep, my calf. Like it pulled it exactly the same feeling as when I was running. And I'm like,

you have to shut it down right there. Oh, God. No, I actually, like I had the video. I didn't post it, but so I finished that second rep. And I was like, I pulled. for a long time before the third one. And I'm like, oh my God, what is wrong with that calf?

And then I'm like, can I, I really don't want to not finish it because I've now done 22 of my 25 reps. And I'm like, I plan on moving up this week and I'm next week. And I feel a lot better about moving up after the successful completion of this weight, you know. And I just don't like quitting. So I'm like, I'm just going to do this third rep really slow on the way down. And then if worst case scenario, if it's like catastrophic, I'll just dump the weight or whatever. And I'm like, do the rep. And I go back up and I'm like, okay, it's just like tender.

You know, like, it is preventing me from doing fast like explosive reps. But I'm like, so I do the third one. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. She's the fourth and the fifth. And I'm like, okay, yep, my calf is definitely strained again. But there again, I was like, how do. did I do that even, like standing stationary. On squat, I noticed for me, you know, I mean, some people say I squat like very high bar

or whatever, but yeah, and I've been doing high bar. Yeah. You know, like, I mean, the bar is low, but it is more of a highish bar type movement pattern. You know, I have a pretty upright chest. But for me, what I notice is if I ever get more on my toes, I can feel some tightness in my, in my calf. Like if I just, and that's not like I'm getting pitched forward. It's just, you know, my balance is just a little more on the front of my foot than

it should be and that's what I noticed it. It wasn't like that like it wasn't like a super hard rep and it was almost like I was just like kind of going so fast and stuff that maybe that happened or something like I it felt very easy and then I'm like ah no stop doing that to do that in the last set second rep the last set yes so but now that's been a couple days and it's getting better it's not a serious injury but it's just an it's a nuisance at this point. Yeah.

You know. Gotta tell that thing to stop. Yeah. I'd be like, knock it off. You. It's your body's trying to say. It's your body's way of saying, let's sit on our ass a little more.

I was just going to say the lesson I learned. If I can't sit on my ass, I'm going to pass. If it's seated, it's undefeated. True words have never been spoken. Yes. Okay.

Strait Co. Yes, this episode is also brought to you by the Strength Co. You know, we tour a lot of gyms. We go a lot of places, see a lot of people, see a lot of things. But there's one thing that I can always count on, and that is, when I see a set of strength co plates in a gym, I'm always just in awe. They look good in every gym. They make good gyms look even better because that's how fancy these plates are.

They're smooth yet easy to grip. They're black. They're e-coded. They are made to last a lifetime. I mean, I'd say they're probably made out last you even. You just get your turn with them when you're done. Someone else is going to have them because that's how good they are. If you want to get a pair of set, I shouldn't say a pair of strength coat plates for yourself.

Head on over to the strength. Dot co and pick yourself some up today. I can almost guarantee you that once you get your first pair set plates, whatever you decide to get, you're going to say, I want some more. Thank you, Stranko. You all know about Jim Radar, obviously, at this point, if you're not on it yet. If you have a home gym, you listen to this podcast all the time and you haven't joined Radar, please check it out, get on there.

Also, if you're just in the market. Yeah. Well, what more do we got to do to bring you into this? Also, even if you are on gym radar and you're not thinking about this, if you are looking at buying any new gym equipment, the number of times people reach out and they're like, oh, got to tell us. you, Jim Radar just like saved the day. I was looking at buying something to fill X, Y, Z need that I have. And I went on Jim Radar, did a little look. And I'm like, actually ended up buying a different product than I thought I was originally going to.

I'll say this, even just looking at our attachments category, like right here, I'm looking at, okay, here's a rogue attachment. Here's something from Fringe. Here's Sput, Inc. Rep, Porter, Fizzed, Go Strong. Like, just to like look at those. would be, we'd be talking one, like nine different tabs and searches on different websites or multiple searches on a single website to just see what we're seeing right now.

Like it makes it so easy to compile all of this stuff in one spot, check prices, and start making buying decisions. So, yes. I mean, it genuinely is useful to a other additional ways to support us is by becoming a supporting member to purchase anything from our store. We actually have a decent inventory of shirts right now. You can get the new Jim Radar tea that we have available. There's a few of the drinking team teas from the last drop, not a lot of those.

And then there are still brand new sticker packs from the last drop. In addition to that, you know, we've got bench heavy teas, lift shit teas, massonomics, lifting department teas. We've got DrinkSpotter Lights, Drink Spotter, XLs. anything you'd buy from us, we'd love to sell it to you. We also got new stuff in the works. Of course, there's always new stuff in the works. Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.

We need to get that up closer to 700. It's kind of been slacking, and I feel like it's probably our fault for not telling you. So we're not mad at you, we're mad at ourselves for not letting you know that we need a five-star review on Apple Podcast. The other thing you can also do, besides actually just actively using Jim Radars on Massanomics.com, where we do still have an affiliate page.

If you're buying something and you just want to support us that way, almost every company that you buy equipment from, you can probably just click through Jim Radar, but also check out affiliate links. Otherwise, if you want to go directly through that, we also have discount codes for a bunch of these companies. Those are also listed on Jim Radar as well. And people have been doing that, and we are noticing,

and we are super appreciative. So thank you for everyone that is clicking affiliate links or using Jim Radar to help make buy. decisions. Yes, absolutely. Good point to that. We are noticing that and we are very appreciative of that. Get signed up for the virtual lift hard, live easy classic.

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You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore bear. Just make sure to follow Massonomics at Massanomics. See you.